


Their Game

by Sunel0



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Immortality, Love/Hate, M/M, Many murders implied, Minor Character Death, Murder, Poisoning, Resurrection, Witch Stiles Stilinski, no-one actually dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunel0/pseuds/Sunel0
Summary: Today Theo was going to die.He knew it.It was his turn.They had been at it for centuries now, Stiles and he. Killing one another, that is. It was kind of their thing.
Relationships: Theo Raeken/Stiles Stilinski
Kudos: 39
Collections: Steo Spooktober





	Their Game

**Author's Note:**

> For Steo Discord Spooktober Bingo square Witching Hour  
> Big thanks to @impractical-matters and @FandomSlash for their help!  
> I saw the photos of the cup and the saucer and had to do something with them

Today Theo was going to die.

He knew it. 

It was his turn. 

They had been at it for centuries now, Stiles and he. Killing one another, that is. It was kind of their thing. 

It started out by accident, really. They were young, dumb, emotional, and in love. They still are, for the most part. Maybe not as dumb, though.

In his first life, Theo was a bastard son of a wealthy merchant (well, as wealthy as they got in the New World back when it had only just started), taken into the house for the sole reason of his passing as “white”, according to the terminology people use now. He was never allowed to see his native mother and forced to do all the tasks around the house like one of the servants. 

No wonder he was angry enough to agree to be turned. In all his lifetimes, Theo hadn’t regretted that decision for a second.

His father and half-sister didn’t survive the night he came back to their house. He didn’t touch anyone else and walked away.

In his first life, Stiles was one of the several Poles who were brought to the first Roanoke colony as workers, before its evacuation. Theo had never asked, but he suspected that the disappearance of the second colony had something to do with the fact that Stiles was blackmailed into going to the New World. 

You know, never piss off a witch and basic survival rules like that, especially a powerful one. One so powerful that he aged slower than humans, which made him an easy target if you knew what to look for. Back when he used to age.

Theo could tell a lot of stories about how powerful Stiles was exactly. He could fill hours and hours of a conversation with them. He loved the feeling of Stiles’ power when it was unleashed, crackling in the air and against his skin, making everything feel charged and as if slightly vibrating. The pure force of nature.

They met by chance. Back then, there weren't that many supernatural creatures among the new settlers and the local supernatural world had not been kind to them, to put it mildly. Justifiably so.

In the beginning, most of the supernatural creatures that came or were born there were lost souls with nothing to lose. They didn’t have anyone back in the Old World or anything in the New World, so they just survived, bundling together into packs.

And that was how they met.

Stiles found Scott first, and Theo came a few years later during his journey south.

It started off fine. It was nice, even, to have people who understood around.

But the longer he was with them, the deeper he fell for Stiles. And Stiles was falling right alongside him. 

They were so young and desperate back then. Not that they had gotten better since then.

But Scott wanted to use Stiles, and use him for “good things”. Whatever that meant. The problem was, Scott was taking more and more of Stiles' time. 

Theo knew Stiles' power would never be fully realized with good magic. He hated sharing. Also, he wanted to be an alpha. There was only one way, really.

So when the chance presented itself, he took it. The same thing he did when offered to be changed, the same thing he did with his father and sister. The same thing he always did.

That was how Stiles found him. With his hands still bloody and Scott’s body at his feet.

Stiles had never forgiven him.

Back then, his magic just killed Theo on the spot. An involuntary protective reflex.

But apparently, Stiles couldn’t actually cope with Theo being dead. So at three in the morning under the light of the next full moon, he carried out a ritual. A proper one, dark as the nights used to be before electricity.

The darkness had always suited his magic best, in Theo’s opinion.

Stiles brought Theo back and let him go. He couldn’t see him die, but he also couldn’t let him stay.

So Theo went away. 

But it wasn’t like he was actually going to let Stiles go. 

Ten years later he sought out the pack again. He came to Stiles. He tried to convince him to run away with him. 

It wasn’t Theo’s fault that Liam saw them and had zero control over his rage for his long since dead alpha.

Stiles' death was just a casualty of Theo trying to protect himself, just one little unforeseeable misstep.

It was Lydia who had allowed him to take Stiles' body. Theo brought it to the river. He wanted to spend a few more hours with the man he loved, even like that. 

But at three in the morning, under the light of the full moon, Stiles gasped for air.

It turned out, he was as smart and caring enough to make sure that the pack wouldn’t end up without his protection for too long. Stiles knew they were mostly a disaster without him.

When he realized that Theo killed Liam, he just killed Theo again. The pack was his family, after all.

And then brought him back. Because once again, he couldn’t just let Theo die.

That’s how it started.

Theo would come back from time to time, kill a pack member (mostly by accident, but also… they were the reason Stiles wouldn’t just leave with him), and Stiles wouldn’t be able to actually let him go forever. And it went on, and on until there weren’t any pack members left. 

And then Stiles sought Theo out himself.

And killed him again. 

And brought him back again.

And in that live Theo got pissed. He could let it slide as revenge, but just like that...

So he came for Stiles. But Stiles came back to life just like the first time. 

The angry sex afterward was one of the best experiences of all of Theo’s lives. And it never got old, even when they started to allow themselves to spend whole months together before and after killing each other sometimes.

Theo wasn’t even sure when exactly they understood that they stopped aging during all of that. He just figured their inner clock reset every time and never really lived long enough or paid enough attention to see any changes, plus werewolves aged slower. It was kind of fun not being completely sure when Stiles would come for him, or when Theo himself would get bored enough to go after him.

It took Theo three attempts to actually fully reenact The Picture of Dorian Gray in real life, because Stiles interrupted him twice.

Stiles complained to him that he almost convinced the local society that he was the real-life Doctor Frankenstein until Theo very dramatically shot him in front of everyone.

Now they took their turns.

And today was Theo’s time to die again.

Stiles arranged a date in a fancy restaurant, so Theo was in one of his best suits. The burgundy one, his favorite.

Stiles looked just stunning in his sort of mustard or turmeric yellow. one. Maybe the most romantic choice would have been “golden”. Theo had never been good with colors.

They were in a private corner of the place. An understandable precaution for what was about to happen.

The dinner was fine, not the best thing Theo had eaten, but to be fair Theo had had a lot of things in his lifetimes.

At the sight of the huge cup of cappuccino Theo’s brows drew up. 

Stiles knew he didn’t drink coffee with milk. Or sugar for that matter. So it was probably poisoned or an attempt at diversion.

They drank slowly, discussing the anime they watched before Theo killed Stiles last time. They decided they should finish it. 

When the coffee (disgustingly sweet, breaking all the rules of coffee etiquette, and probably the worst part of the dinner) was finished, Theo looked down from Stiles' eyes for the first time since the cups were brought to them.

“You’ve been poisoned,” said the bottom of the cup.

“Bye,” said the saucer.

Theo chuckled.

“You bastard. Went for classic,” he looked back up at Stiles.

Stiles smiled delightedly.

“There’s only one bastard here.”

This was the last thing Theo heard before his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell to the side onto the sofa he was sitting on. 

When Stiles was sure Theo had stopped breathing completely, roughly ten minutes later, he went around the table and crouched near Theo’s head lying on the nice comfortable cushion. Stiles smiled softly, gently brushing a strand of hair off Theo’s face and leaned in to press a lingering tender kiss to his forehead.

Stiles glanced up at the sky through the simple pretty stained-glass window. The full moon watched over both of them with cold interest. It was then two in the morning. 

And he still wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Don't forget to leave kudos if you liked it and comment if you are up to it:3 You can find me on tumblr [under the same name](https://sunel0.tumblr.com):3  
> [Also a moodboard and the post with this fic on tumblr](https://sunel0.tumblr.com/post/633440178322751488/their-game) if you'd like to reblog it:3


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